“She can’t like it very well,” Fleta answered, “but she is very dignified about it.”
“Sidney would be. I hope that she won’t make it hard for the new girl. She could, you know.”
“Yes; but Sidney never does mean things.”
“Sidney is honorable, but she can let a girl alone about as well as any one I know; and it makes a difference here, whether you are a friend of Sidney’s or not.”
“Yes,” thoughtfully Fleta assented. “She says now we must make sure that it is she we are talking to, when we tell any secrets or talk about the Double Three.”
Dulcie laughed. “We must have a pass word, then,” she said.
CHAPTER IX.
LETTERS.
For a few days all of Shirley’s extra time, except enough for outdoor exercises, which she took in a general way, was spent in catching up and in reciting her missed lessons. She would not risk putting it off. There was much less of it than she had expected, she wrote to the dear folks in Europe, from whom she had received the longed-for fat letter. To them alone she repeated a few complimentary remarks from her teachers in proof that she was “getting along all right,” as she told her parents. All the happy details left to be told about the trip she related as well as her impressions of the school, but not a word did she say about finding her double in existence. Why tell it, she thought. To Dick, however, it made the main subject and Shirley chuckled as she started in on a letter to him.
It was Friday night and Madge, who was preparing to go with Cad to the library, asked what she was laughing about. “What I’m going to write to Dick,” replied Shirley. “Dick is my cousin, who was along on this summer trip with his father and mother. Perhaps I was the one who was ‘along,’ though. They all took care of me.”
Madge looked interested, but hurried off, as Shirley had told her that this was her great opportunity to catch up and write home. The usual Friday night affairs had not begun so early in the year. Lessons could be divided between now and Saturday, though the boat trip was in prospect for the seniors.